For starters, I own a Stihl pole saw that extends from 7 feet to 11 feet. After a storm blew down 15 large trees one week ago, I fired up my Stihl and let's just say that it is still at the dealer getting repaired. At this time, I am really disappointed with my really expensive gasser unit. And that is why I went to the store and bought this pole saw. Regarding comments on having a saws with some type of "quick" chain tensioner device; this is the only saw I own that has one bar nut on it. Typically speaking, the saws that only have one bar nut on them or have some type of "quick" adjust tensioner are junk and you don't want to buy them. The quick adjust tensioners will break and the chain will loosen up a lot with use. This is the same with having only one bar nut, with regard to the chain coming loose all of the time. So, having two bar nuts on your saw's bar is a good thing, not a bad thing. I personally see it as a flaw that this saw only has one bar nut on it, when it should have two. So far I have not had an issue with the chain loosening all the time, so hopefully Milwaukee addressed this issue in testing. I have used this saw to cut through 10 to 12 inch chunks of a tree that twisted and bent over about 15 feet off of the ground. Of course, I first used it to cut off all of the branches, then tackled the thicker parts of the trunk to get as much of the weight off of the part that was hanging in the air as was possible before I dropped it to the ground. You cut through one side of the tree limb, then go to the other side and cut the rest of the way through the limb. This saw is much lighter than my Stihl gasser, with that being said, when doing overhead work with it, it is exhausting to hold it up in the air for a length of time and this isn't a knock on the saw, it just is what it is. I have gotten it stuck in limbs, the trunk parts of the tree that were hanging in the air and after retrieving it, it has worked really, really well. I am quite pleased with this pole saw and have used it pretty hard for two days now. As a matter of fact, the only time that the chain has fallen off of the bar, is when I have gotten it stuck by in a cut that compressed the bar. It is a battery operated saw, so you have to force yourself to remember to fill the bar oil reservoir with oil. Not like on a gasser when you naturally fill the bar oil when filling it with gas. The other thing is that I had to force myself to remember to pull the battery when tensioning the chain. On a gasser if the engine isn't running, you are pretty safe to work on the business end of the saw. This unit too, isn't going to jump up and start running out of the blue, but it makes me feel better to have the battery removed when working on the chain end and it was hard to remember to pull the battery because of owning gas operated saws. Battery life, I could not speak to as I use this saw like a gasser, I only fill the tank when it runs out of gas, so when the chain stopped turning, it was time to throw the battery on the charger and get a different one. I used it with and xc6.0 battery while the xc8.0 that the saw came with was on the charger and I am sure it did not run as long as it does with the 8.0, but I can tell you that the xc8.0 was fully charged by the time the xc6.0 died, so it wasn't a problem. So far, I really like this pole saw and I have used it really hard, which will continue to be the case. Unlike my Stihl which literally fell apart in two different places, three different times after using for around 15 minutes with a total run time of less than three hours on the pole saw.
